The Victor diamond mine in northern Ontario, which was Canada’s first diamond mine, has been turned into a lake, according to a report in IDEX Online.
De Beers, which received the 2022 Tom Peters Memorial Mine Reclamation Award for its reclamation work on the Victor Mine since its closure in 2019, has filled the decommissioned mine with almost 12 billion gallons of water.
The Victor mine opened in 2008 and closed in May 2019, during which time it produced more than 8.2 million carats of diamonds. Recognized as Canada’s first economically viable diamond deposit in 1987, De Beers Group Canada “spent $2.6 billion building and operating it during its lifetime,” according to the report.
“We’ve been working on closing Victor Mine for close to 20 years, even before we started construction,” De Beers senior communications officer Terry Kruger told Canada’s government-funded broadcaster CBC, “so closing the mine has always been at the forefront of our mind, even before we started to operate.”
BRON: https://en.israelidiamond.co.il/ 7-5-2023
